It’s amazing how much a decade can change. Just a decade ago, vendors struggled to provide the basic rudiments for automated triage in customer service. They persevered despite the fact that it was often ugly. That’s good.
Back then, the websites that were dedicated to customer service were not very good. They either couldn’t help at all, in which case you’d be put into the regular phone queue, or they’d run you in a circle until you gave up — and if you were the obstinate type, you could find yourself disengaged from the service center with a 404 error.
It was so bad that I read a report about the service preferences of different demographics. The older demos, it is not surprising, were less inclined to mess around with systems that they knew would not be able to help them. Instead, they preferred just waiting in the queue or ordering pizza as a way to pass the time. It is not surprising that companies who realized this played music from the time when these people were teenagers on hold.
Modern Customer Service: A New Era of Innovation
Today, the world is different. Without risking a fatal error, service sites are able to speak with customers. Some can even take things further if customers have the patience to request and navigate — service orgs have learned the value of spinning up a new process to deal with an emerging problem.
Over the years, it is reasonable to say that the CRM community has been working on optimizing customers and their behavior within the service paradigm.
I realized a few years ago that the service apps were so successful and sophisticated that customer optimization was not possible. In mathematics, I would say we were close to reaching an asymptote. It becomes too expensive to continue, both in terms of effort and money, at that point. You need to find a different approach.
Modern CRM: Challenges and Opportunities
Now the ball is on the other side. Here’s why. When we were optimizing our customer service, a growing number of difficult cases began to reach the call center. For some time, it had been clear that most easy problems were now being handled by the technology. The only remaining issues were those that required more effort. These nuts will require more work, creativity, and information.
CRM systems need to provide agents with better information and more data.
Oracle commissioned me to do some research that revealed service agents were often using up to eight applications simultaneously on their desktops, including sometimes their phones.
Many companies do not update their software frequently enough, which is why all these apps are open. Agents were left to synthesize the data and come up with solutions. This is a joke but it does make me think about the ideal training to be an air traffic controller. Okay, it might not be a joke.
Salesforce’s New Solution: Service Intelligence
Imagine my delight when I learned that Salesforce had launched Service Intelligence. This new app is powered by Salesforce Data Cloud and is a part of Service Cloud. Service Intelligence lets users close seven of the eight apps to focus on Service Cloud recommendations and service dashboards.
It is not uncommon for users to find it difficult to configure a new product in a way that makes sense. Salesforce has not only created an app, but also pre-built service dashboards.
Agents no longer have to stare at raw data from eight screens or windows. Instead, they can now access AI-powered insights with key metrics. This isn’t all immediately helpful to agents because it includes metrics like average closing time, escalated case numbers, and so on.
AI-Driven Customer Service Analysis
It gets even more interesting when you consider that there are also things like Einstein Conversation Mining uses AI to analyze conversations with customers. The analysis allows agents to see patterns in service demand that they can address faster. Tableau integration also allows managers to produce visual renderings to help them resolve issues faster.
What’s available now is geared towards managers, but it may be more useful to users in the future. The features that will be available soon may prove more valuable to users. Einstein Copilot allows users to ask questions about dashboards and metrics using natural language. (Without getting a 404 Error, lol!) Watch for it in the Spring.
Einstein Studio is also expected to launch in spring. It will offer AI-generated insights that identify customer propensity for escalated cases, the amount of time it would take to resolve the case, and score the effort required.
It’s quite a bit when you combine these tools and Service Cloud’s AI tools to get the right answers for customers. It is certainly more efficient than having eight apps/screens open at once and trying to navigate through all the data.
It is more difficult to land a passenger plane than it is to provide customer service. This is especially true when you consider the outdated computer systems that are used in our air traffic system. It’s not right, given some of the stories about near-misses that are circulating. Hey, Salesforce.com, what about aviation?
